Teresa Basich is the Content Marketing Manager at Radian6, the social media monitoring and engagement platform. She blogs at Writing On Purpose and is @TransitionalTee on Twitter.
The Olympics. They’ve been talked about, reported on, blogged about, tweeted, YouTubed, Facebooked, Flickred, and then some. A sporting event of this magnitude is prime fodder for discussion in all senses of the word, so, of course, the committees involved in pulling the 2010 Winter Olympics together did their duty to integrate online conversation into their big media picture.
But, did the Olympic brand do a good job? Unless we’ve got a list of all the goals that were set, and proof that they were or weren’t achieved, all we can really do is take a cursory look at the effort made and guess at how it all turned out, right? Right. So, let’s do that.
The Big Four on Facebook and Twitter
For the U.S., the four major organizations involved in all things Olympics are the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC), the United States Olympic Committee (USOC), and NBC.
Each organization crafted their own social media strategy and created multiple Facebook pages and Twitter feeds independent of each other. Both the IOC’s and VANOC’s main Facebook pages have snagged over 1 million fans to date, and have garnered a fair amount of fan chatter despite distinct differences in approach (the IOC has leaned heavily on athlete connectivity, while the VANOC has been focusing more on photos and news). The USOC and NBC, on the other hand, have attracted comparatively modest followings to their Facebook pages. The USOC is the only one among the group, however, that seems to have a flow of Facebook Wall comments coming directly from fans and not the moderating organization.
As far as Twitter goes, almost all the Olympic Twitter feeds are push oriented, offering very little engagement. Graeme Menzies, director of online communications, publications, and editorial services for the VANOC, told the folks at PBS’ Mediashift that he views Twitter as an ideal channel for pushing ticketing and location-oriented information out to followers, and stays away from interaction. Menzies says the same of the VANOC’s Facebook page – the organization stays out of fans’ ways, letting them talk with and comment to each other. The reason? The plan was to have the main hub of the VANOC’s online activity be its website.
Still, in spite of not using their accounts for much engagement with fans, all four groups have succeeded in attracting at least somewhat sizable followings on the two major mainstream social media hubs.
The Extras
All four organizations, again, followed their own paths to flesh out some interactive extras, including podcasts, YouTube channels, mobile apps, video games, and small fan communities.
The big winner in the Extras category, though, is the VANOC’s Cultural Olympiad Canada CODE digital art installation. For the year leading up to the Olympics, the VANOC requested photos and stories from Canadian residents and visitors that they felt represented the country and culture of Canada.
Those who wanted to get more heavily involved in the project were able to collaborate with each other to “remix” the text and photos to be used in the final installation. This digital scrapbook of sorts has been showing on big screens around Vancouver for the duration of the games.
3 Things the Olympics Could Have Done Differently
Though the follower numbers were there for some of these initiatives, as far as jaw-dropping social media programs go, the efforts put forth by the IOC, VANOC, USOC, and NBC didn’t quite make the mark. Did they receive the attention the organizations hoped they would? Possibly. On a global level, promotion for the Olympics felt sparse, though, so it’s not surprising people seemed fairly unaware of these organizations’ social media activities. What could they have done differently to improve? A few things:
1. Engage. After a little bit of listening and monitoring we found that approximately half the online conversations surrounding the Olympics have been happening on sites like Twitter. That’s a major word-of-mouth opportunity missed. If the Olympic committees had used Twitter as a channel to connect versus a channel to push content, the interactivity and conversations that stemmed from that two-way relationship might have spread outside the confines of the Internet, increasing overall attention and interest.
2. Collaborate. Yes, all four organizations have individual messaging and brands that should receive recognition during the Olympics. But, the Olympic brand in its entirety is a brand that speaks directly to collaboration. It would have been nice to see a unified microsite built around the collective social media efforts of these organizations, in addition to the individual efforts we saw.
The most prolific information about the games actually came from media outlets like The New York Times and Yahoo! Sports, not from the committees themselves. A single microsite may have acted as a central hub for that sort of information, putting more eyes and attention on both the collaborative and individual initiatives of the Olympic organizations.
3. Build community. Social media is at its best when it’s used to foster connection between people and brands through passions. The Olympics are steeped in athletic competition and global unity – two passion points poised for some serious community building. A collaborative online community centered around the games could have been (and still be) used to inspire community member and Olympic fan connectivity between events, act as a listening channel to help shape the activities supporting the upcoming games, and keep people interested year-round in the work and pursuits of the Olympic committees.
We look forward to keeping a close watch on the growing Olympics presence in social media, and hopefully seeing stronger conversation and engagement strategies at the next games, London 2012.
How do you think the social media strategies of the main Olympic entities played out this year? Were you able to engage with other fans on social media? Do you think things could have been better? Let us know in the comments.
[img credit: Miss Barabanov]
Tags: analysis, facebook, ioc, nbc, olympics, social media, sports,
twitter, vanoc
